Joyously Home
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "There's a dreamy, fairytale quality to everything tonight. This morning. It's coming up on morning, and he doesn't want her to go." A TARDIS-verse tag for Once Upon A Crime (4x17). See bio for TARDIS-verse info. Not a crossover.


Title: Joyously Home

WC: ~3400

Rating: T

Summary: "There's a dreamy, fairytale quality to everything tonight. This morning. It's coming up on morning, and he doesn't want her to go." A TARDIS-verse tag to Once Upon A Crime (4 x 17)

A/N: Ugh. That's all I have to say. See my bio for info on the TARDIS-verse. It's not a crossover.

* * *

He absolutely does not want her to go.

It's late. It's _so_ late, and there's something about the furniture in disarray—something about the whole loft at sixes and sevens—that makes a difference.

It's his home, yes. But tonight, this a place apart for them. _Once upon a time in a far-off kingdom . . . _

That's exactly it. He steals a glance, and it's not just imagination. There's a dreamy, fairytale quality to everything tonight. This morning. It's coming up on morning, and he doesn't want her to go.

The wine certainly didn't hurt. Free-flowing champagne, because his mother insisted, and the better part of a bottle of red when he was desperate. Once the stupid playwright was gone, and Alexis and his mother had trailed up the stairs, he'd been desperate to keep her there in the delicious silence. To steal as many moments as he could. So he'd suggested sharing something new on the wine rack. An embellished story, plausible to no one who didn't want to stay. And she had stayed. She'd tucked her bare toes up on to the couch under her and said _Yes._

But that was a while back. Now, she's yawning, and he's long since stopped up the bottle. It's cheating. He knows it's cheating, and he wants all of his faculties about him.

He wants to study her like this. Languid and easy and skipping lightly from topic to topic. Teasing him about his mother's show. Asking for stories and telling her own. A lovely vignette about a bright striped bathing suit and a day at the beach. A sandy subway ride home with skin toasted by the sun as she'd swayed between her parents.

But her words come slower and slower, and her cheek is heavy against her fist. He knows she might go any second. He should let her. She doesn't always sleep well, even all these months later. He knows she still doesn't. He should let her go, but he takes up the thread. He lets his voice dive low and rumbling. He tells her about a hot summer day laying pennies on railroad tracks. Waiting for trains. Catching a glimpse of a fraction of his face in the copper brushed bright and flat.

"You look like your mother," she says with a sleepy smile. "Only tonight." The corners of her mouth turn down, like she's thinking hard. "Only saw it tonight. Martha to you to Alexis." Her hand lifts, a point fixed for each of them, a sweeping line connecting one to the other to the other.

Her eyes drift closed, and he wants to gather her up. He wants to carry her off and tuck her in. He wants to curl his body around hers. To share. Warmth and breath and this dream-like peace. He absolutely doesn't want her to go.

But she stirs. She opens her eyes wide and shakes herself. She plants her fists on either side of her hips on the sofa and untangles her limbs. She murmurs, _I should go. _

He doesn't contradict. He doesn't reach for her hand, the way she reached for his. He doesn't say _No. You should stay. You should never go. Never. _

* * *

He keeps on biting his tongue as she gathers herself up to go. He thanks her for coming. Thanks her for her quiet, sincere praise for his mother. He manages that, and she's gracious. Genuine. She's blushing and thankful in her turn for being included, and he knows she means it. That far beyond them and what he wants badly for someday, this means something to her. Family she never expected to have.

It's a lingering goodbye. In the living room as she offers to stay and help put things to rights. By the door when they find another story or two that needs telling. In the hall as he leans on the doorframe and she backs slowly toward the elevator, calling out a soft reminder to thank his mother again. To congratulate Alexis on running a tight ship.

But the elevator comes. The doors open and close with a flicker of her pale fingers in a wave and a last glimpse of a shy smile.

He closes the door behind him. Turns the bolt with regret. He's tired, too. Weary, but knows that sleep will be a long time coming yet. He might write a while. Bleed off some of this feeling. Love for this side of her that doesn't really go with Nikki, but he writes it anyway. He knows he'll write Kate Beckett for the rest of his life. Every side of her, whether or not the pages see the light of day.

He's not ready to sit down to it yet, though. He's not ready to let go of the way his pulse races and his stomach flutters when he thinks about holding her hand.

He moves instead. He busies himself, gathering up glasses and returning this and that to their rightful places. Whatever he can do to pass a little time with a minimum of noise.

It's not much. He doesn't get much done at all before his phone chimes. Before it lights up, and his pulse is galloping.

_Time out._

* * *

It's crazy. This is all crazy. It feels like it's happening to someone else. All of it. It's a return to early days for her. Back to when she was starstruck. Fizzing and giddy and hiding her jitters with insults and impatience. Lashing out to bleed off some of the mad energy skipping through her all the time. All the time.

She hides now, instead. She's as brave as she can be. She tries. She pushes herself. Counts to ten. To twenty. To a thousand. But she runs in the end. She chokes out his name. A plea when they're on the verge. When they're falling already, and she's not ready for a fraction of everything she feels.

She counts on him to end things. Weighted, longing moments that he cuts short with a joke because he follows her lead. He spares her with patience that can't be infinite. It can't be.

She feels that tonight. The tug of anticipation in him. That he's tempted. That he'd like to tempt her right along with him. She gives in more than she should. To him. To herself and this safe harbor. This pretty little fantasy where she's not broken. Where she can bask in Martha's larger-than-life affection and hold his hand. Where she catches Alexis watching her openly and she doesn't flinch. Where she holds the girl's level gaze and shows her that she means to do better than she has. To be better. To him and for him.

She stays too long. She says yes to more wine and lets him coax stories out of her. She lets him tell tales. She grins at his white lies and embellishments. She bites her lip and lets him get away with it. The very crimes he's been accusing his mother of all week. She hugs her knees and leans in eagerly when it's honest. When he tells her simple truths about the boy he was. The sweet, silly things he believed in.

It's wonderful, this spell winding around her. This slow simmer that makes her want to stretch long and sling her jacket over the back of the chair. It makes her want to nod off with her feet in his lap and barely stir when he slides and arm behind her shoulders. Under her knees. She wants to let him carry her off.

But she doesn't trust this. She doesn't trust the wine and the cosy knot of belonging settling high in her chest. She doesn't trust herself with him.

She steels herself for going. She thinks about another couch 2,000 miles away. A mirror image of this, but so much the same.

She doesn't look away this time. Here. Now. He doesn't leave her name hanging in the air.

She goes, though. She takes her time. She glides along reluctantly. But she goes.

* * *

It feels wrong. Every step and every movement of her body. The elevator doors bumping shut. Cutting off her last glimpse of him. The flat, uncompromising way her shoulder blades sag against the back wall. The night doorman's quiet goodbye and her own tired smile and wave. It all feels wrong. Like she's out of place in every part of her life that doesn't keep her near to him.

She pushes through the heavy glass revolving door and out into the chill night air. She ducks lower into her coat. Into the scarf he'd wound around her. Something from the hall closet. Something he'd insisted on and fussed over, because he didn't want her to go at all.

She waits for the spell to break. For cold and noise and the mundane work of getting herself home to make this easier.

But every step feels wrong. The clack of her heels on pavement is a jarring, broken excuse for rhythm. She stops at the corner. She looks up and counts the windows. She finds the light burning in his.

She fancies she can see him moving around. Busy hands and busy mind. Heartsore because he didn't want her to go. He _never_ wants her to go. Panic washes through her at the thought. The truth. He never wants her to go.

It pushes her across the street. A jerking rush of steps that has a horn blaring. It's a stop sign, but she stumbles into the ladder of white lines without looking. The driver yells something. She turns and mouths _Sorry. Sorry. _

It's such a worn-out word. In her mind, anyway. She seldom says it out loud. He knows, though. It passes silent between them. Apology and reassurance. Acceptance that this is how their story goes for now. That she has to leave. He has to let her, even though it feels wrong. Every step away and every day that dawns without him.

She stops. Her body just stops. It's nothing in particular. It's everything. The moon left of the Pleiades. The cold and the absence of him. The scent of his home deep in the bright blue wool tickling her chin. The certainty that she doesn't belong anywhere he isn't. It's everything.

The phone is in her hand. She taps out the letters. Hits send before she can think about it. Before she can do the math. Before she can talk herself out of it.

_Time out. _

* * *

The glass slips from his hand before the chime fades away. He's rigid and still, and it's almost too late. He jerks into motion a second before it crashes to the floor. He catches it. Sets it aside, and he's moving fast.

He fumbles the phone from hand to hand, almost too eager to send it back to her._ Time out._

He searches for his keys. He scoops them clumsily into his pocket. He starts out the door, then comes right back in. _Coat._ He needs a coat. Oversized mittens he bought for her one night not too long ago, because she never has them in the middle of the night. A second scarf he loops around his neck because it's cold, and for a sensible person she's never dressed for the weather.

He's downstairs. An elevator ride and practically out the door to the street when he realizes he has no idea where he's going. There's no address. No follow-up since he replied. His heart thuds to a stop. He wonders if it's a mistake. If she didn't mean it at all.

Momentum carries him around. Half a circle and then he's out. Spinning off on a tangent that takes him all the way to the curb. He sags. Peers at the stubborn black of the screen and despairs.

He'd ask. He'd prompt. Fire back another text. _Where are you?_ But those aren't the rules.

He stands helpless a minute, making up his mind to walk anyway. To walk until it might feel like home without her. He's glumly wondering how long that might be when the screen lights up. His heart leaps and plummets again. He frowns down at the message. A picture, no text. Something with black on black shapes and the amber streak of streetlights.

It fights him a while. He's tired and unsure. Shaky on all of this. The image resolves into sense a second too late. Him. It's a picture of him, staring despondent at the phone, strange and out of place.

But he only knows that a second after he hears her. A soft, shy _Hey_ that's unsteady with nerves and sounds like home.

* * *

She hasn't thought this through. She just . . . she wants to be with him. But she's tired. She's not remotely hungry, and the energy tickling at her skin carries her as far as him and stops. There's no driving, urgent need to walk and move and be that figures into her math the way they sometimes do. There's no particular question or worry or thing that needs saying out loud.

There's nothing but the conviction that leaving tonight is like waking in the wrong story. Bears and witches when she's armed for big bad wolves. But she doesn't know how to say that. She doesn't know how to fit the sentiment into the odd formality of the middle of the night. Where to go. What they'll talk about. If it's coffee or kisses or veiled apologies. Tentative hopes and reassurance. _I want. I hope. I know. I'm here. I'm waiting. I'm trying. I know. I know._

She doesn't know, though, and maybe it's everything at once.

It paralyzes her at first. Her feet grow heavy and slow. They stop, and she stares at the screen._ Time out_. Her own stacked on top of his instantaneous reply.

She stares down at the screen and up at the sky and out at the world. She lets it roll over her. The overwhelming certainty that _with him_ is the sum total of what she wants. Where she needs to be tonight.

She sees him. Out here already. Seeking her, though she hasn't given him any place at all to start.

She watches it happen to him. The same thing. Sure certain movement coming to a full and complete stop. There are rules for this. He'd follow them if he knew how.

She's of two minds. Of two everything as she watches his face fall. His shoulders slump and the hope go out of him. Guilt seizes her like a fist. Certainty that this isn't right or fair or anything like a good idea. But she wants to be with him. Tonight she doesn't want to go. He didn't want her to go, and that feels simple.

It carries her nearer in waves. Clusters of short, pattering steps back the way she came. She raises the phone and her thumb comes down. She sends it off. A dark blurry picture of him and that's the answer. Where she wants to be.

"Hey," she says when she's near enough.

It comes to him out of order. Recognition. He understands the picture out of sequence with knowing she's here.

He doesn't seem to hear her. Not at first. He comes to her, his face full of light. Bright red mittens dangling from one hand, the other raised, pulling her to him and he's not nervous at all. That makes one of them.

His lips brush her forehead. He folds his arms around her, and as far as he's concerned, it seems like they could stay right here. Ten steps from his door with the moon left of the Pleiades.

She's a jangling mess, though. Her heart is pounding and every cell dances impatiently. "Where . . . I don't . . . I know I'm supposed to. . . " She trails off. He's laughing at her. Rocking her in his arms and laughing, pressing kisses to her cheek._ "Castle!"_ She sounds cross. Petulant. But she's a mess and he's laughing. "Where do you want to go?"

That stills him. It quiets him for a count of five. Seven. She loses track then. He pulls back and presses the mittens into her hands. His palms curve on either side of her jaw. He studies her. Falters and steels himself.

"Home." He leans in and kisses her lips once. Softly. "Just . . . Tonight, Kate. You can have the guest room or the couch or . . ." His eyes flicker over her. Head-to-toe heat. "Whatever you want. Just come home with me tonight. Stay."

"Home," she says, and if it were anyone but him, she'd hate the longing. "Home, Castle."

* * *

They fall asleep in his office. That's how it turns out eventually. He chatters brightly. Not nervous. Happy. Like she's a new friend he's never brought home before and he wants to show her everything.

He offers things. She stops him at tea. He smiles wide when she says she'll make it herself. She moves quietly through the kitchen. He calls out soft directions every once in a while, though she doesn't need it much. _Next one over. Behind the chocolate chips. The _other_ chocolate chips, Beckett._

There are grand plans for a movie. TV. "Something dumb. Or scary. Or scary dumb," he says.

But in the end, she sinks into a chair with her shoulders curved to catch the warmth rising up from the mug. He follows. Switches this lamp off and this one on. He talks softly. Pads around the room fussing with things until she brushes her fingers over the back of his hand as he passes.

He stills. He smiles down at her and drops into the other chair. It's not long then. The room is warm, the light is low and pleasant. His voice winds around hers. A bedtime story as her eyelids grow heavy.

She stirs sometime later. He's calling her name softly. Brushing the hair back from her face and she turns into his touch. She's a warm, loose wave and everything is perfect except a low buzz. Something about bed. About moving, she swats out at it. Her nose wrinkles and it goes away. Dissolves into a quiet laugh and a soft weight coming to rest. A blanket.

_Perfect,_ someone murmurs. An echo, maybe, but wrong. It's wrong. She struggles. She fights against everything weighing her down. Every single thing that makes her limbs heavy and her eyes shut tight. She reaches for him. Her fingers find his shirt. _Blue,_ she knows, and the slight texture of it is satisfying. Pinstripes that chase up and down behind her eyelids. She pulls him to her. _Castle_. The name curves her lips into a smile as they touch his. A goodnight kiss and she sinks back deep into dreams instantly.

_Perfect, _someone murmurs, and this time it's true.

* * *

She wakes before him. He knows, somewhere beneath the heavy slide back into sleep. He stirs. He tries to push through it, but her fingers are soothing on his forehead.

_Sleep,_ she says, stern and sweet._ Coffee when you're really awake_.

_Coffee. _It's another voice. Closer. So close it might not be out loud. It might be in his dreams. _Owe me about a hundred. _

A breath of laughter washes over his cheek. A tug at his hair she can't seem to resist.

It pulls him up blinking into the light. Into the world where he's all over aches, but her hair is wild and shot through with gold. Where the warmth of a coffee cup clings to her fingers even though she must have set it down.

"Kate." He's barely able to scrape the word out of him. He's barely able to haul open his eyes.

He half wishes he hadn't when she looks like she's caught. For a terrible stretch of time when it looks like she'll run.

She doesn't though. She bites her lip and her chin juts out. There's a stubborn light in her eyes. She stays, and he's more in love with her than he was ten seconds ago. "Not _even_ a hundred, Castle. Not any more."

"Not any more," he says. "Not even close."

* * *

But Red Riding Hood went joyously home,

and no one ever did anything to harm her again.

- The Brothers Grimm


End file.
